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batteries. During a long time they seem to 

 prove victorious. Several horses sink beneath 

 the violence of the invisible strokes, which they 

 receive from all sides in organs the most essen- 

 tial to life ; and stunned by the force and fre- 

 quency of the shocks, disappear under the 

 water. Others, panting, with mane erect, and 

 haggard eyes, expressing anguish, raise them- 

 selves, and endeavour to flee from the storm by 

 which they are overtaken. They are driven 

 back by the Indians into the middle of the 

 water ; but a small number succeed in eluding 

 the active vigilance of the fishermen. These 

 regain the shore, stumbling at every step, and 

 stretch themselves on the sand, exhausted with 

 fatigue, and their limbs benumbed by the elec- 

 tric shocks of the gymnoti. 



In less than five minutes two horses were 

 drowned. The eel, being five feet long, and 

 pressing itself against the belly of the horses, 

 makes a discharge along the whole extent of it's 

 electric organ. It attacks at once the heart, 

 the intestines, and the plexus cceliacus of the 

 abdominal nerves. It is natural, that the effect 

 felt by the horses should be more powerful, 

 than that produced upon man by the touch of 

 the same fish at only one of his extremities. 

 The horses are probably not killed, but only 

 stunned. They are drowned from the impos- 



